Small vs. Large Companies and the Tech Their Sales Teams Need—Part 2

Small and large businesses may not have everything in common, but there is certainly one thing that defines them as being alike: neither come without challenges or obstacles that are unique to their specific size. One such challenge involves the sales team of each company. In part one of this series, we detailed everything about the small business’ sales team – from small business owners’ perceptions of the market to the biggest challenges they’re facing to the cloud collaboration technology they need to overcome them. Now it’s time to put the spotlight on the small business’ big brother – the enterprise.

Challenge No. 1: Bigger Companies Require Better Time Management

The bigger the company your sales team is selling for, the greater the need is for time management. The pressure is being felt now more than ever, and sometimes, that can lead to sales teams’ best practices flying out the window. Unfortunately, this can include how time is being delegated. For example, the average salesperson makes eight calls per hour and prospects for about 6.25 hours just to set one appointment, according to aggregated data from Buzz Builder.

As an enterprise sales team leader or manager, remind your team about the importance of time management. According to that same data:

Web leads are nine times more likely to be converted if a salesperson follows up with them within five minutes.

The best times to e-mail prospects are between 8 AM and 3 PM.

The best time to cold call is between 4-5 PM; meanwhile, the worst times are 11 AM and 2 PM.

Challenge No. 2: Lack of Prospecting

Eighty percent of sales require five follow-up calls after a meeting, yet 44 percent of salespeople give up after just one follow-up; in fact, the average salesperson only makes two attempts to reach a prospect, according to the aforementioned data. The more members you have on your sales team, the harder it can be as a manager to keep track of who is suitably prospecting and who is falling short. Or, all of your prospecting and sales could be going to only a few select people. In fact, Gartner has found that in an enterprise consisting of up to 500 employees, an average of only seven people are involved in most buying decisions.

If you’re still searching for that extra motivation, just remember that companies lose an average of 14 percent of their customers each year. The lesson learned? Never slow down with prospecting.

Challenge No. 3: Thinking Outside of the Box

As the manager of an enterprise sales team, it may be tempting to stick with what you know. After all, you have a lot on your plate, and if current tactics are working well enough, why take a different route? Research shows, however, that this kind of mentality may be keeping your sales team at bay. As the year nears a close (and your sales team is working harder than ever to hit its numbers), consider reevaluating your existing sales methods.

If you’re at a loss, mull over these three strategies:

Referrals: BuzzBuilder’s data shows that 91 percent of customers say they’d give a referral, yet only 11 percent of salespeople actually ask for them. Remember that word of mouth is the most powerful form of selling. After all, a satisfied customer is shown to tell about four to six people about their experience, according to data from ClickSoftware.

Visuals: Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. Needless to say, incorporating visuals into your team’s sales process or techniques could prove quite advantageous – and profitable.

Linked In: This professional networking site has proven its worth over the years. In fact, research shows that top salespeople use LinkedIn about six hours per week.

The Tech to Solve It:

To solve these problems, enterprise sales teams must be equipped with unified communications and collaboration (UCC) technology. This unique technology helps cut timely corners and shorten laborious processes that are well-known within the sales realm so that your team can get things done faster. With UCC, getting approval from upper management is faster than ever before with the option of sharing documents via Google Docs and e-signing. Or, asking your boss about a discount to close a deal is made easy with presence technology like instant messaging, where team members can get approval in real-time to close the deal faster. Or, if you have a geographically disparate working team, geo presence technology depicts on a map where individuals are and when they’re available.

Unified communications has been shown to decrease the average telephone call by over 20 percent and increase team-based collaboration by over 2800 – yes 2800 – percent. Click here to start exploring your UCC options with Esna.